Purpose as Evidence for Intelligent Creation?

[Reading Time: ~8-9 minutes]

How does purpose help support the idea of intelligent creation?

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When I see the world and all that goes on in nature, I don't see randomness or nothingness; I see purpose, design, intelligence, emotion, even creativity. So many discoveries, ideas, all sorts of amazing things in this green earth that people often take for granted. So much has been put into our world that we may not even realize, even some possible answers that can arrive from close observation.

And all these things point to intelligent creation.

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[PART ONE: Purpose as Evidence for Intelligent Creation]

That which benefits and supports life cannot be contributed to randomness or nothingness but rather purpose. Everything in nature has a purpose. Whether we know its specific purpose or not, in some way or another we can find that animals/creatures, plantlife, the earth, even weather has a purpose to keep the world going. Neither randomness nor nothingness can create purpose.

Not knowing all the answers doesn't mean that we cannot locate patterns, methods, or even some degree of "predictability" in nature through observation of the earth without human intervention.

In the case of animals, we can see this "predictability" by the natural behavior each species carries. This natural role that such creatures are born already understanding is instinct.

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How do you see instinct in action?

Take reptiles, for example. When they hatch from their eggs, they arrive in the world immediately independent. Their parents don't teach them anything—how to walk, how to talk, how to swim, how to hunt, what to eat, why their skin needs to shed, nothing. They already know how their bodies work and what they need to do to survive. That is instinct.

A caterpillar is born already knowing that it needs to eat enough leafy greens, then prepare a cocoon when it's ready to enter the next stage in its life cycle: a butterfly. Yet no living creature has taught it how or why it does this, nothing to suggest that they had to learn this. It arrives resembling nothing like their larval stage, with no access to a mirror, yet it knows it has wings and can fly without need for practice. And the first thing it looks for in a meal is nectar from flowers. It didn't need to "figure" anything out, it already knew. That is instinct.

Honey bees are intelligent, organized, and systematic, living in a complex hive and working together to ensure survival of their colony, especially their queen—the only member that can produce more workers (females) and keep their colony going. They have workers that gather pollen and nectar from flowers to take back to the hive and make food. A number of them are even assigned to guard the entrance for intruders, nurse the queen and feed her larvae, or report to the queen the conditions to decide when and where to swarm to a new location. How do they all understand these roles and their needs and keep their complex system going? They don't have school to teach them those things. That is instinct.

If you took home an abandoned kitten that wasn't raised by its mother, how would it behave? It would still groom itself with its tongue. It would still have a taste for meat. It would still have a desire to hunt and chase prey, chatter at a bird, claw and scratch, jump and climb, and also know a variety of ways to "meow", each sound with its own meaning. How does it know it must do those things even without mothers to teach it? Instinct.

Where do herbivores get their taste for plants, and how do they know which ones to eat? How do animals know to groom themselves or shed their skin? How do birds know which way is south without a map or compass? What "teaches" fish to use their fins to swim? What "tells" turtles to head immediately for water as soon as they hatch on the beach? All these examples and more are part of their natural instinct—their natural-born understanding of their physiology and specific purpose.

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See how animals already understand this idea of living with a specific purpose to ensure their survival, as demonstrated by their natural-born instinct. And what they naturally do not only benefits themselves but also the environment, ensuring survival of all life on the planet. These patterns in nature and their natural mutual benefits cannot be mere coincidence; that is the natural purpose of their existence.

All animals do their part in their own special way according to their species, but what they all have in common is that their actions all contribute to maintenance of the planet itself.

Pollinators like bees and butterflies naturally spread pollen as they collect and fly from flower to flower. Without flowers, they wouldn't have food for their own kind, and neither would herbivores or omnivores.

Dispersers like squirrels spread and bury seeds like acorns. Deliberate or not, they don't always return to collect their stored food, and in turn this allows for new plant life to surface.

Livestock and grazing animals like sheep and horses remove and trample weeds as well as break up dry soil with their hooves, also allowing for seeds to be dispersed. And animal waste becomes fertilizer for the land (and also food for some creatures, which also helps clean up the place while providing nutrients).

Beavers make ponds by creating dams, which not only give them a place to make their homes but also support life for other creatures like birds, fish and amphibians.

Carnivores and carcass eaters (ants, maggots, flies, vultures, etc.) exist to compensate for the possibility of death. By relying on meat to survive, they remove dead flesh (keeping the planet clean and less smelly) as well as control and prevent overpopulation of certain creatures, which helps conserve resources so there will be enough food for other creatures. Yes, this also helps their prey, which all do their part in maintaining the earth and helping the plant life continue, which in turn allows more creatures to be born, which also allows carnivores to keep doing their job by having more meat to eat.*

*(See also my two-part article on "Does the Bible Support Vegans?" (Pt. 1 & 2), which also taps into the purpose of carnivore and herbivore diets and why they can and should respect each other.)

Termites typically feed on dead wood, and woodpeckers help with tree maintenance by pecking for termites—including the kinds that may damage trees by feeding on live wood.

And plants not only provide food, they also provide oxygen and shelter and wood for a number of uses (trees) as well as medical remedies to treat wounds and ailments.

And all this is only a fraction of the list of benefits!

This is what some may call the "circle of life", where everything naturally plays its part to keep life on earth continuing. It's a naturally-occurring process of mutual cooperation and benefit. Whether the animals are fully aware of this mutual process or not, does not change the fact that their actions naturally help maintain life on the planet. This is why such order maintained cannot be mere coincidence, randomness, or nothingness.

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But where did natural-born instinct come from? Animals have it to benefit each other and the world, and everything in nature is clearly shown to have purpose in keeping the world alive and continuing.

If life is meaningless, as some like to think it is, then why do all these things exist to help maintain it? Why do they aim to survive each day to continue their purpose if it meant absolutely nothing? What do they have to live for?


Well, have you considered that everything they do also happens to be for our benefit?

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Here's the thing: that natural-born instinct is also what separates animals from humans.

Animals can learn to problem-solve and adapt according to their instinct and natural abilities allowed by their physiology. Anything "new" that it learns is only an extension of its natural abilities reinforced by, say, human intervention (i.e. teaching tricks with food, toys, or affection as rewards). Unless they can find a benefit for it (a pleasant reward), they don't attempt to learn new things that may "go against their instincts", because it's something they wouldn't naturally do otherwise.

Animals don't need to ask a hundred questions about why they do what they do, they just naturally do it as if they already know. Their purpose is consistent according to their species and their set of needs.

Humans, on the other hand, do not have the kind of instinct that animals are born with. We have to learn how to walk, speak a language (even multiple complex languages), make rational decisions, swim, create things, use new skills, build our knowledge, etc. We can develop a variety of interests, and no two humans may necessarily have the exact same combination of interests and skills and talents and knowledge. Humans are more complex and inconsistent in their ability to make a variety of choices, have a variety of jobs to choose from, even forming complex societies, cultures, and belief systems. We constantly discover and invent new ways to improve our way of living (or even make it worse).

We humans try to understand and reason over everything we do. We have the ability to question our existence or purpose, argue about ethics, judge, compare, doubt, even go against our better judgment and deviate or defy logic/reason. And there are so many things still not yet well-understood by us. We're constantly asking the why questions. We have the choice to help life for the better or hurt life for the worse. Our actions can support life or bring forth unnecessary destruction. Our kindness keeps the world going, but our selfishness makes matters worse for everyone and even the planet. This vast ability to choose, called freewill, makes us different from animals.


So why don't humans behave or function like animals? That's because we are not animals; we have a different purpose from them. While part of our purpose may involve maintaining life as nature does, our complex freewill, which separates us from the rest of nature, suggests that our purpose goes farther beyond this.

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Everything must exist for a reason. To have a purpose is to have reason to be.

Whether we know it or not, we, too, have a purpose.

No matter how you slice it, purpose is why the world cannot exist via randomness or nothingness. Such a system to maintain life itself is undeniable and has to mean something in the grand scheme of things.

The world is just too purposeful, too interesting to exist by mere coincidence.

[Continue reading in Part 2.]

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Author's Notes:

Here is what may become a possible series of articles regarding evidence for intelligent creation, explored from an observational perspective. This is not to force anyone to come to one conclusion but rather to encourage people to think about life from a perspective perhaps not yet considered.

Cover image courtesy of Ronny Overhate.

(Written on April 12, 2019.)

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